In the same periodical we find a few specimens of Timrod's powers as a prose essayist and critic. Discussing that venerable question, “What is Poetry?” he shows a strong, clear judgment, and a thorough appreciation of his subject in all its phases.

“As we recall,” he says, “the various attempts to describe, in a single definition, those operations of the human mind upon itself and the world without, which, incarnated in language, we term poetry, we are reminded of a childish search, actually commenced by ourselves, after the pot of gold which is said to be buried at the foot of the rainbows.”

Elsewhere he remarks:

“Poetry does not deal in pure abstractions. However abstract be his thought, the poet is compelled, by his passion-fused imagination, to give it life, form, or color.

“Hence the necessity of employing the sensuous or concrete words of the language, and hence the exclusion of long words, which in English are nearly all purely and austerely abstract, from the poetic vocabulary. Whenever a poet drags a number of these words into his verse, we say that he is prosaic; meaning by this, not that he has written prose, nor that he is simply deficient in spirit and vivacity; but that he has not used the legitimate language of poetry; he has written something which is only distinguished from the ordinary dead-level of unimpassioned prose by the feet upon which it crawls.”

And again: “The ground of the poetic character is a more than ordinary sensibility. From this characteristic of the poet results what we regard as an essential characteristic of poetry, namely, the medium of strong emotion through which poetry looks at its objects, and in which, to borrow a chemical metaphor of Arthur Hallam, ‘it holds them all fused.’ Hence, again, is derived a third peculiarity in the language of poetry, which, with a difference in the degree, not the kind, of its force - arising from an imagination more than usually vivid - is the language natural to men in a state of excitement, is sensuous, picturesque, and impassioned!”

From these extracts, and the extracts about to follow, an imperfect glimpse may be obtained of the writer's poetic creed.

Timrod, as was natural with a disciple of Wordsworth, enthusiastically admired the Sonnet. He defends it against the assaults of a large body of depreciators with admirable skill and effect.

“The Sonnet,” he begins, “has been called artificial. It is artificial, but only as all forms of verse are artificial. There are persons who imagine poetry to be the result of a sort of mystical inspiration, scarcely to be subjected to the bounds of time or space! Others, regarding it as the outgushing of a present emotion, cannot conceive how the poet, carried on by the ‘divine afflatus,’ should always contrive to rein in his Pegasus at a certain goal. All this is ridiculous!

“If the poet have his hour of inspiration (though we are so sick of the cant of which this word has been the fruitful source, that we dislike to use it), it is not during the act of composition.

“A distinction must be made between the moment when the great thought first breaks upon the mind,

and the hour of patient, elaborate execution. It is in the conception only that the poet is the vates! In the labor of putting that conception into words, he is simply the artist.

“The very restriction so much complained of in the Sonnet, the artist knows to be an advantage. It forces him to condensation, and if it sometimes induces a poetaster to stretch a thought to the finest tenuity, what argument is that against the Sonnet? As well might Jones object to the violin of Paganini, because Smith, his neighbor, is a wretched fiddler!

“The Sonnet is designed, as it is peculiarly fitted, for the development of a single thought, emotion, or picture.

“It is governed by another law not less imperative than that which determines its length. We know not how else to characterize it but as the law of unity! In a poem made up of a series of stanzas, the thought in the first stanza suggests the thought in the second, and both may be equally important. The concluding stanza may have wandered as far in its allusions from the opening stanza, as the last from the first sentence in an essay. In other words, the poet has the liberty of rambling somewhat, if his fancy so dispose him.

“Now, in the Sonnet this suggestive progress from one thought to another is inadmissible. It must consist of one leading idea around which the others are grouped for purposes of illustration only.

“We claim for the Sonnet, as represented in English literature, a proud distinction. We could gather from it a greater body of tersely expressed and valuable thought, than from any equal quantity of those fugitive verses, the laws of which are less exacting.

“It abounds in those ‘great thoughts, grave thoughts,’ which, embodied in lines of wonderful pregnancy, haunt the memory forever.

“Brief as the Sonnet is, the whole power of a poet has sometimes been exemplified within its narrow bounds as completely as within the compass of an epic! Thought is independent of space; and it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the poet - the minister of thought - enjoys an equal independence.

“To-day, his stature reaches the sky; to-morrow, he will shut himself up in the bell of a tulip or the cup of a lily!”

In 1860, a small volume, comprising the best of Timrod's verses, produced during the eight or nine years previous, was issued by Ticknor & Fields, of Boston. A better first volume of the kind has seldom appeared anywhere. It was welcomed outside the author's immediate circle by a few cultivated Southern editors, and some even of the critics of the North did not hesitate to commend it.

For example, “The Tribune” said: “These poems are worthy of a wide audience. They form a welcome offering to the common literature of our country. The author, whose name promises to be better known from this specimen of his powers, betrays a genuine poetic instinct in the selection of his themes, and has treated them with a lively, delicate fancy, and a graceful beauty of expression.”*

The most elaborate performance in this book, indeed the longest poem Timrod ever wrote, is called “A Vision of Poesy.” Its purpose is to show, in the subtle development of a highly gifted imaginative nature, the true laws which underlie and determine the noblest uses of the poetical faculty. The subject is one of difficulty, demanding for its successful treatment not only an originally comprehensive and subtle mind, but no little knowledge of psychological truths, and the philosophy of intellectual growth.

Imagination, descriptive capacity, and metaphysical insight are active in elucidating the theme; and the result is a generally pleasing and impressive work, marred, however, by a too evident lack of harmony and unity of parts, proceeding

* Such comparatively slender recognition as this, of course fell short of the poet's anticipations of success.

Apropos of this volume, a kindly but discerning critic observes: - “The book was full of promise; it gave evidence of considerable culture, of a lively fancy, a delicate, and at times vigorous imagination, and a rare artistic power. Yet it fell almost dead from the press!

“The few who had real critical taste, a genuine and native appreciation of excellence, felt and expressed their admiration; but the public had no niche for him, not, at least, until he had achieved success, and success was to him a bitter need, for not his living merely, but his life was staked upon it!

“And the disappointment was peculiarly keen, because just at this juncture his other resources had failed. He had surrendered everything to his art.

“He had hoped, earnestly and justly, to make a little rift through which the light of popular favor might steal, and now only clouds and shadows were closing round him.” - From a Lecture on Timrod, and his Poetry, by Dr. J. Dickson Bruns.

Of the minor poems which followed “The Vision,” it is unnecessary to speak in detail. The ablest of them have been included in the present edition.

We now come to the period of the War, during the first months of which Timrod remained chiefly in Charleston, serving his country a thousand times more effectually with his pen, than he could possibly have served her with his sword.

It was in 1861 that he inaugurated that remarkable series of poems, suggested by the incidents of the great conflict, tragic or triumphant, in which he struck a higher and firmer note than any hitherto elicited from his lyre.

“Ethnogenesis” is the worthy leader of these sustained and earnest strains. The dignity and calmness of its tone, covering unsounded depths of ardor and enthusiasm; its subtle grace of imagination, feeling, and imagery, and the crisp purity of the versification are so artistically blended in this ODE, that one cannot criticise, but must simply and honestly admire it! The concluding stanza cannot now be read, at least by any Southerner, without a yearning and passionate regret. How the Poet's cordial sympathetic temper reveals itself in these lines, which came more naturally to him than visions of violence and blood!

That resonant lyric, “A Call to Arms,” succeeded “Ethnogenesis.” It contains one of the few palpable conceits I can recall, which would seem not merely admissible, but charming.

And next appeared a Tyrtaëan strain indeed, I mean the lines on “Carolina;” - lines destined perhaps to outlive the political vitality of the State, whose antique fame they celebrate.

I read them first, and was thrilled by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! Walking along the battlements, under the red light of a tempestuous sunset, the wind steadily and loudly blowing from off the bar across the tossing and moaning waste of waters, driven inland; with scores of gulls and white sea-birds flying and shrieking round me, - those wild voices of Nature mingled strangely with the rhythmic roll and beat of the poet's impassioned music. The very spirit, or dark genius, of the troubled scene, appeared to take up, and to repeat such verses as -

At last, influenced by these and other poems of kindred force and fire, the public awoke to a sense of Timrod's unusual merit. Towards the close of 1862, a project was formed in Charleston, with the view of having an illustrated and highly embellished edition of Timrod's works published in the city of London. Vizetelli, an Englishman of Italian blood, and an artist of some eminence, then the Southern War Correspondent of “The London News,” offered to supply original illustrations of his own; and so warm was the support the proposition met with from some of the chief men and most opulent merchants of the State, that but little doubt was entertained of its immediate and practical realization.*

The poet, now in jubilant spirits, collected all the compositions of which his taste approved, and had them printed near him, so that correct proof-sheets might be sent to the publishers across the Ocean. Among his war-lyrics he placed some poems, also lately written, of a more subjective tone and character, for example - “Katie,” and “An Exotic;” both of which, from their references to English history, scenery, and manners, were likely to be appreciated in the “motherland.” The former (“Katie”) is dedicated to the lady whom Timrod subsequently married; and is full of charming details of her girlish walks through the streets of old Bury St. Edmunds; and of her innocent holiday pastime in the lovely country around it. The piece is almost pre-Raphaelite in the delicious minuteness of its word-painting.

But alas! that evil Fortune, that haunted our poet from the cradle to the grave, that never left him for a season, but to return darker, grimmer, more ruthless than before; decreed that the publication scheme, which had aroused his best hopes and energies, by promising to make his genius known in the great centre of English literary art, should prove but a mockery and delusion after all!

A fair conception of Timrod's editorial style - its picturesqueness and beauty, allied to much quiet power, may be obtained by a perusal of three brief articles of his, published in “The Carolinian.”

The first of these, evidently composed during the closing days of the war, is called

“MY DEAR P-: - Your letter found me a scribe in the Governor's Office, where I work every day from 9 A.M. TO 7 P.M. I snatch a moment from my labor to answer your note. Yes; I have had a sad and hard struggle of it for the past six months, but just as I was about to despair of help from God or man, I received from Governor Orr a temporary appointment as an assistant secretary, or rather, clerk. The appointment is but for a month or so, in order to get through a certain amount of work which crowds upon the department at this time. It ensures me, however, a month's supply of bread and bacon; that devoured, I'll trust in God that something else will turn up. This last is no conventional remark. I am really learning, P-, to trust in God!

“My health is very wretched. The doctors prescribe change of air, but, of course, that remedy is impossible at present. Both on this account, and to shake hands once more with you, old friend and true heart, I should like to accept the invitation to your home.

“But here I must stay like a lugubrious fowl, to scratch for corn. I shall, however, keep your invitation in memory, and as soon as practicable, be assured, I will gladly take a turn or two upon your cot in the country.

“You say nothing about Mrs. H-, and your boy, Willie! Ah, how ineffably dear that name has become to me now. He (my own lost Willie) was the sweetest child. But every body thought him too ethereal to live, even when he seemed in the most perfect health!”

In the January of 1867, Timrod, addressing his friend, Judge Bryan, says: “My term of service in the Executive office ended at the close of the session. It was no child's play. On two occasions I wrote from 10 o'clock one morning until the sunrise of the next day (a brief intermission for dinner being allowed).

On the 13th of September, ten days after Timrod's return to Columbia, he wrote me the following note:

“DEAR P-: I have been too sick to write before, and am still too sick to drop you more than a few lines. You will be surprised and pained to hear that I have had a severe hemorrhage of the lungs. It came upon me without a moment's warning, my mouth being filled with blood while I was listening to Wm. Talley talking.

“I did not come home an instant too soon. I found them without money or provisions.* Fortunately, I brought with me a small sum - I won't tell you how small - but six dollars of it was from the editor of the ‘Opinion,’ for my last poem. * * *

“I left your climate to my injury. But not only for the

* When one thinks how little - how very little of the “world's gear” would have served to make this most unexacting of mortals content, nay, happy! there is something in the dogged persistence and cruel energy of the fate which harassed and wounded him along almost every yard of his rugged life-path, that resembled the virulence of a Greek Nemesis, rather than the chastenings of a benignant Providence.

Again on the 16th I heard from him, thus:

“Yesterday I had a still more copious hemorrhage! It occurred in the street - the blood came in jets from my mouth; you might have tracked me home in crimson!

“I am lying supine in bed, forbidden to speak, or make any exertion whatever. But I can't resist the temptation of dropping you a line, in the hope of calling forth a score or two from you in return.

“An awkward time this for me to be sick! We are destitute of funds, almost of food. But God will provide!

“I send you a Sonnet, written the other day, as an Obituary for Mr. Harris Simons. Tell me what you think of it - be sure! Love to your mother, wife, and my precious Willie” (since the death of his own child, he had turned with a yearning affection to my boy). “Let me hear from you soon - very soon! You'll do me more good than medicines!” etc.

The Sonnet he mentions is here before me, written in pencil on a scant fragment of paper, but in a calligraphy clear and bold as ever:

Reading these lines, no shadow of a presentiment oppressed me. I simply admired the art of the Sonnet, and its tender Christian feeling, unconscious that another “In Memoriam” would soon be called for, steeped in the bitterness of an irremediable grief!

On the 25th of the month this confidence in Timrod's recovery was confirmed by a letter from Mrs. Goodwin.

“Our brother,” she writes, “is decidedly better; and if there be no recurrence of the hemorrhage, will, I hope, be soon convalescent!”

A week and upwards passed on in silence. I received no more communications from Columbia. But early in October a vaguely threatening report reached my ears. On the 9th it was mournfully confirmed. Forty-eight hours before, Henry Timrod had expired!

The circumstances attendant upon his last illness and death, are related by his sister in terms at once so graphically minute, and so tenderly pathetic, that I cannot but feel justified in laying the letter - although a private one - before my readers.